124 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Society have been published, and the published volume confirms the above 

 statements of Mr. Phillips, as in the minutes for May 18, and June 21, 

 1768, the term* Hessian Fly was printed. 



The evidence against the introduction of the Hessian Fly, and even 

 its introduction by Hessians is so easily set aside, and so weak as com- 

 pared with the positive evidence of such introduction, that I have long 

 wondered at the records of these meetings, and thought that there must 

 be some error. Only recently, however, did I have the opportunity of 

 personally referring to and examining these early minutes in the original. I 

 felt an interest in doing so, because I thought it barely possible to show 

 that they were transcripts from earlier rough minutes, and made sub- 

 sequent to the revolution, when the term Hessian Fly, then familiar, was 

 inadvertently added by the transcriber. I was therefore much amazed to 

 find that there is really no mention of the Hessian Fly in these old 

 minutes, until the year 1791. I take the liberty of reproducing verbatim 

 et literatim the records as they really occur of the three meetings in 

 1768, quoted by Mr. Phillips in Dr. Hagen's communication : 



May iSth, 1768. — " It was recommended to the Committee of Husbandry, &c, to 

 meet on Tuesday, 31st of this month, at the college to consider whether any method can 

 be fallen on for preventing the damage done to wheat by what is called the fly. N.B. 

 Monsieur du Hamel has written on this subject." 



June 21st, 1768. — " The Committee for Husbandry report that they had considered 

 ye affair of destroying the Fly in wheat, and that Dr. Bond had laid before them a paper 

 containing many useful observations on that subject, which Dr. Bond was requested to 

 read before ye Society. The Society having heard and approved of ye paper request him 

 to prepare it for ye Press, that it may be communicated to ye public without loss of time." 



Nov. 15, 1768. — " Colonel Lee transmitted to the Society the ingenious and accurate 

 observation of Colonel Landon Carter, of Sabine-Hall, in Virginia, concerning the fiy- 

 weavil that destroys the wheat. The Society acknowledge themselves under great 

 obligations to Col. Carter for communication of the conclusions he has formed (on long 

 experience) concerning that insect's propagation and progress, and the methods to be 

 used to prevent the destruction of the wheat by it, and order it to be printed for the 

 public benefit." 



It will be seen that in all three " the fly," " the fly in wheat " and 

 " the fly-weavil " are the terms used, and it is susceptible of positive 

 proof that all these popular terms applied then, as they sometimes do yet, 

 to entirely different insects, viz., the grain-weavils, Sitophilus granaria 

 and S. oryzce, and the Angoumois grain-moth, Gelcchia cercalella. Now 

 the minutes, as published, are avowedly abstracted from the original 



